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A Game of Colors
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When Sara sets out to learn what happened to her sister Katie, she's not just seeking a runaway. She is following the footsteps of someone who chose a specific kind of life, a life not often considered by the average person. Only people with certain abilities choose this way, this route, and Katie and Sara both have the ability to bend colors to their will. For in John Urbancik's urban witchcraft tale, the craft centers around color and its manipulation.
Sara must, like Katie, pass a rigorous phase of testing and training in one of many underground covens. Her teacher is Gypsy, alternately harsh and protective. But Gypsy can also be Sara's executioner, as proven by the room full of skulls belonging to students who didn't quite make the grade. All this is bad enough, given Sara's instinctive but not refined understanding of her own skill, but then she realizes that other members of the secret coven have their own agendas, their own vendettas, and their own methods...
Who is Sara's enemy? The lover who comes to her in the night? Her teacher, who seems determined to test Sara's skills to the death? One of the other practicing witches? And who is Sara's secret ally?
John Urbancik creates a world woven from several different fabrics, the most intriguing of which is the basis for the witches' power, the manipulation of colors. There is a faint echo of Anne Rice here, in the ancient international covens grown fat and wealthy, but there is also a strong and independent narrative about a sympathetic character who is not above doing a little double-dealing of her own. While novel length might have been advised, this 55-page novella proves an engaging introduction for what is likely to be a longer, interconnected work. Yard Dog Press is expanding its market share with a series of upcoming chapbooks, and that's good for everyone in the field!